Valentine
by sineout
Summary: Surprise, surprise, things go wrong on an off world mission, and as usual, it's down to our cantankerous physicist to save the day again.


**Valentine**

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><p>Continuity – Set about two weeks after Identity (or, about three months after Brain Storm)<p>

Spoilers – Potentially anything up to (and including) Identity.

Disclaimer – Alas, I don't own Stargate Atlantis, that honour goes to MGM

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><p>Keslek Bryant was a concerned man. Of course, such a statement went without saying, he was the leader of a sizeable village during the ongoing problems found in the Pegasus galaxy. If it's not the Wraith, he has to worry about ancestral warships, or virulent diseases, not to mention the usual ne'er do well that would occasion into his village.<p>

The last thing Keslek needed was more trouble. Unfortunately for him, wishing for something doesn't make it a reality.

A small number of the townspeople had been rendered moribund, alive, but not really there any more, and he, nor his healers had any explanation for their condition.

These townspeople tended to be those that would travel into the ruins to find things of interest or value that could be traded among the others of the alliance, so, of course, Keslek ordered those ruins off limits.

That didn't stop everyone from entering the ruins however, and more people were affected with this condition.

Keslek Bryant was especially concerned because one of the affected was his son, the only remaining family he had, so, he was glad to accept aid from the Lanteans. Their reputation preceded them as being helpful to peoples and villages in strife, he just hoped they could turn their considerable ability into helping his son and the village he leads.

–

After reading the report from SGA-2 Richard Woolsey decided to call a conference with SGA-1, Dr Keller and Dr Beckett.

The usual mandate from the IOA was to reduce the amount of off-world support to only those planets that are directly allied with or supplying Atlantis, but Richard had learned that following those rules was ill advised. With many of these worlds attached to the gate network and actively using said network, he had learned that Atlantis' reputation had preceded itself to worlds that were only footnotes, at best, in the Ancient database.

So, he learned that ignoring a direct request for aid would be a foolish thing to do.

According to the report, there was a disease slowly spreading among the ruin explorers of M8Z-450.

The disease didn't seem to be communicable via the usual means, but even the healers of the village made the causal connection between the ruin and the affliction that the explorers suffered.

The actual cause of the disease was unknown, even Major Lorne's team couldn't figure it out, though, granted, none of them were medical experts.

"I know some of you had plans for tomorrow, but a situation has come up that needs our attention," Richard opened. Inwardly amused by the quiet groans coming from some in the room.

"For those of you who haven't yet read the report, there has been an outbreak of a disease on M8Z-450, and the village leader, a Keslek Bryant has made a direct request to us for aid, I'm inclined to accept, particularly given the details provided. Granted the report doesn't go into detail about what's happening, but this illness seems to only affect those that explore the ruins near the village, which are Ancient in origin."

"Aye, the disease seems to not be virulent, it essentially leaves the victims in what seems to be a coma, though, of course, we'll need to find out that for sure when we get there. The only connection seems to be the ruins, and, in particular, a device in what seems to be a small lab in the centre of the ruins. Which is where all the victims have been found." Carson continued.

"Sounds like it's this device that's causing the problem." John Sheppard followed.

"Maybe, but not necessarily, it could just be the most obvious bait and something else in the lab is causing the disease." Jennifer rebutted.

Rodney sent her a smile, he was about to say the same thing, albeit, a little more barbed.

–

The planet of M8Z-450 was unremarkable in nearly all aspects, the Ancient database containing only basic planetary survey information, and a single line comment that read as 'suitable for humanoid life'.

There was no mention of any sort of research outpost or Ancient colony of any sort so the ruins of M8Z-450 were something of a mystery. Of course, with the Ancient propensity to 'forget' to document things, the cynical would be right in assuming that the lack of documentation wasn't an accident. Which, naturally lead more to the mystery of the ruins of M8Z-450

Doctor Rodney McKay was in good spirits, in spite of being on some backwater planet in the Pegasus galaxy on Valentines Day, his good spirits were entirely attributed to the fact that Jennifer Keller was with him on his way to the ruins, him to see if there was any technological reason for the illness, and Jennifer to examine the potential biological causes.

Unknown to Rodney, Jennifer was purposely assigned with him by Sheppard for this part of the mission, they, along with two Marine escorts made the two kilometre trip from the gate, while the rest of SGA-1 and Carson made another two kilometre trip to the village.

"Here," Rodney said, as he held out one of his power bars to Jennifer, "Figured you might want something, since you skipped breakfast this morning."

She had indeed missed breakfast, she unintentionally stayed up late looking over all the information they had on the illness, and slept in as a result. She was a little miffed about that, because she had intended to have breakfast with Rodney to make up for probably missing dinner with each other thanks to their current mission.

Of course, Rodney wasn't aware of this meeting, even though they were officially dating, they often had breakfast with whomever was with them, as opposed to each other. Since they normally took lunch and dinner with each other.

So Jennifer gratefully accepted the treat, Rodney seemed to have his own source for power bars, and they tended to be a lot better than the standard issue, both in taste and nutrition.

"Thanks." She smiled as she took the power bar.

"Nice of you to offer us some, McKay," one of the Marines piped up with a grin on his face.

"You don't look like or sound like Jennifer, and I'm fairly sure that's not your name either. Go find your own valentine to score power bars from." He snarked back to them.

–

"So these are the ruins... they're smaller than I expected." Jennifer remarked. In reality, while the device was, indeed, almost in the centre of the ruins, the ancient facility it was once part of likely didn't have more than two dozen ancients working there.

Most of the ruins had fallen apart over the last ten millennia, which was unusual considering the normal longevity of Ancient architecture, but it was also possible that this could have been a very early outpost in the Pegasus galaxy, and thus, could have been abandoned for significantly longer than the Ancients withdrawal from the Pegasus galaxy.

The Ancient database, of course, didn't contain any information that confirmed or denied this, though the fact that there was an Ancient outpost in the first place, in spite of the contents of the database suggested that whatever was being researched was likely sensitive in nature, and probably a failure to boot.

Something that concerned Rodney a great deal, when he considered one of the many failures made by the Ancients also caused him to accidentally destroy 5/6ths of a solar system.

"Hmm, I can't tell if the size is a good thing or a bad thing. At least it should reduce the search time." He left off his hope that maybe they'd be able to get back to Atlantis early enough that they could still both have their valentines day dinner, mainly because he knew, with his luck, that breathing a word of it would almost guarantee it to not happen.

They both began their search, and Rodney had been right, it didn't take very long, it only took an hour to search, for Jennifer to collect samples from the rest of the ruins, and for Rodney to catalogue all the remaining and mostly defunct technology, before they arrived in the central lab room.

Of all of the ruins, the central lab room was essentially pristine, only a fine layer of dust covered the floor and some of the terminals, though most of that was clearly tracked in from those who had previously visited the room.

The device itself was fairly nondescript, about a metre and a half tall and wide, it had few visible controls, but the rest of its surfaces were a fairly plain dull grey colour.

About the only notable feature of the device was its faint low frequency hum, as if a power transformer was inside it.

"I'm not getting any biological contagion, at all in my scans, in fact, this place is virtually sterile according to the scanner" Jennifer commented reading over the data on her scanner's display.

"On the other hand, I'm getting _a lot _of EMR from the device. Not to mention a strong power signature from it. Looks like Captain Kirk might have been right with his assumption." Rodney replied.

Jennifer giggled slightly, "Rodney..." giving him a look.

"Right, sorry" he replied, smirking, when he caught the look.

"Can you make any sense of the EM Radiation? My scanner isn't built for it, but a lot of it looks too structured to be just static." She asked.

"No, I'll have to go over it after we get back, but it definitely looks like a transmission, and if I'm right, there's a heck of a lot of data been sent and received." He replied, getting heavily focused on the information shown on his scanner display. He walked closer to the device.

The hum from the device subtly changed pitch as he moved closer.

"Err, maybe you should move away from the device," Jennifer warned, her voice wavering with foreboding.

"Hmm? Oh, I'm sure it's fine," Rodney dismissed distracted, not hearing the warning in Jennifer's voice.

"This is amazing, if my guess is close to accurate, then this device is transmitting several hundred gigabytes per second, per channel." Rodney stated with awe colouring his voice, imagining what it'd be like to a have a Wi-Fi connection that fast.

"That's great Rodney, now, please, come back here." Jennifer implored, the pitch of the hum continued to modulate higher, even though Rodney had stopped walking towards the device due to his fascination with the data he was seeing.

Suddenly the hum of the device stopped, leaving a pervasive silence that seemed to suck the sound from all around them.

At the same time, the data rate indicated by Rodney's scanner spiked by several orders of magnitude, and the power spiked along with it.

"Oh crap," Rodney exclaimed and turned, "Get out of this room, now!" He ordered, making his way as he said it.

Jennifer was already near the entrance anyway, and half a second after she passed the threshold, a blinding light flashed in the lab room.

She then heard the faint low hum return, and a fraction of a second later, she heard Rodney collapse on the floor.

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><p><strong>AN**: This story is inspired by Chapter 29 of toosweet's 'How Jennifer Keller Made the First Move', entitled 'When You Are Near'. If you've read it then the most obvious premise should be clear, if you've not read it, then, first, shame on you, and second, stop reading this and go through all of 'How Jennifer Keller Made the First Move'.

I mean, hell, it inspired me to write this story, if it inspires anyone else to write McKeller stories, then that's always a good thing, particularly given the sore lack of stories around our (my) favourite pair.

That aside, I intend this story to be fairly long, 50K words minimum is my aim. So, while McKeller is in this story, there will be a lot of padding, particularly given that one half of that pair will be in a coma for much of the story.

At the moment, this story is set in the same universe as all my other McKeller stories, but as my writing style is, at best, semi-planned (this ranks as my most planned story), there's always a chance I might go AU in both the actual canon and in my own head-canon.

Also, to save space, the continuity and spoilers information will remain unchanged in subsequent chapters.


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